1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus having an automatic original document feeding apparatus that performs continuous reading of original documents, and a control method therefor, and particularly relates to an image reading apparatus which, in reading an original document using the automatic original document feeding apparatus, implements preview display, and allows image data on the basis of the content of the preview display to be efficiently formed, and a control method therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, with the image reading apparatus as typified by the scanner, an original document as the object of image reading is placed on the platen, and the reading start pushbutton is depressed, which causes the reading head to be moved for carrying out original document reading. In addition, the feature of continuously reading plural original documents is implemented by loading an ADF, which sequentially feeds original documents to allow continuous reading.
In original document reading as mentioned above, the TWAIN (Technology Without Any Interested Name) feature, which allows reading to be started by controlling the scanner from the application, is available, and by providing a driver compatible with this TWAIN feature, an instruction for starting original document reading can be issued from a host computer connected to the scanner, for example, a PC.
The scanner which is compatible with this TWAIN feature is also equipped with the preview display feature, which is capable of preview-displaying the read original document on the host computer, and the user can verify the condition of the read original document by preview-displaying it on the host computer, and thus can form image data as desired.
As a related art with which, in such preview displaying, the image data formed by reading the original document can be transferred to a desired application, that as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-113180 is available.
With the related art as disclosed in this Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-113180, the selected region of a document within the preview scan is clicked, being dragged to the open application or the desk top, for starting the optimized final scan of the selected region. This is implemented by displaying a preview image for preview display before the optimized final scan being performed.
In addition, as a related art with which prescan data is acquired by one time of reading operation for allowing a particular image processing method to be specified, and by using the specified image processing method, image data accommodating the finally required image processing for the prescan data can be obtained, that as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-247305 is available.
With the related art as disclosed in this Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-247305, the reading apparatus for original document reading reads a particular original document in a prescribed location, and in addition, carries out reading of the original document in other different locations, then for the pieces of image data for the original document read in the different locations, a prescribed thinning-out processing is performed before prescan data being generated for storage. And, when image processing is specified for the prescan data, the image processing is performed for the stored prescan data for generation of image data which accommodates the image processing for the prescan data.
However, with the related art as given in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open NO. 2000-113180, preview image data to be dragged to the open application or the desk top is generated for carrying out the optimized final scan, which involves generating a preview image for preview display before carrying out the final scan to newly generate image data, resulting in much time being required until real image data is generated after verifying the content of the preview display, which presents a problem that the working efficiency is lowered.
In addition, with the related art as given in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-247305, the reading apparatus for original document reading reads a particular original document in a prescribed location, and in addition, carries out reading of the original document in other different locations, which results in two times of reading processing being required, and thus the reading processing requires extremely much processing time, as compared to the ordinary image processing, which presents a problem that the overall working efficiency for the processing is reduced. In addition, in order to accommodating the image processing performed for the prescan data, the storage region for storing the image data and the working region for performing the image processing are required.